Language experts say it is a phenomenon that has gone largely unstudied. There are no tidy reports or statistics at hand, but they say the trend could finally help make the U.S. a multilingual nation.
"People say, `If you come here, you must learn English,"' said Carolyn Adger, Language in Society director at the Center for Applied Linguistics in Washington. "That's true. But that's not enough."
Immigrants quickly see the benefits for dealing with customers, delivery people and employees. In Koreatown in Los Angeles, where 60 percent of the residents are Hispanic, Vy Nguyen of the Korean Immigrant Workers Advocates sees Hispanic workers learning Korean, and Korean liquor store owners learning Spanish, reports the AP.
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